Blue Harbor started using Amazon Services in the third quarter of 2009, two years after setting up business in New Jersey. With the addition of the Fulfillment by Amazon and Amazon WebStore services they have seen an unexpected spike in their online sales. "Sales volumes increased on average 40 percent to 65 percent for each product we listed on Amazon.com for fulfillment with FBA. The fi rst spike in sales on Amazon occurred when we won the Buy Box in our category. The second, and perhaps more important, is when we started using FBA."

Blue Harbor is enjoying the results so far. Anuj Goel, Blue Harbor LLC, describes Fulfillment by Amazon as a convenient and powerful tool to boost sales. Getting set up was straight forward and the user interface walked them through the process for listing and shipping inventory to Amazon's fulfillment center. With Amazon handling customer service questions, Blue Harbor can focus more on sourcing and sales of their products.

Blue Harbor finds people shop on Amazon.com because they trust the Amazon brand. They know they will receive their orders when promised; and they like the free Super Saver Shipping and Prime discounted shipping. Being able to offer these benefi ts to shoppers instills the same level of trust in Blue Harbor making their products all the more appealing.

Blue Harbor is eager to increase their offering through Fulfillment by Amazon. Currently, the cost savings on warehousing and the order processing is marginal. However, they calculate a substantial drop in overhead as they increase the inventory they offer through FBA and decrease the volume they fulfill themselves. "FBA is significantly more potent than we anticipated, it augments our business well, and the benefits far outweigh the costs."